Rooting an Android Phone: What it Means and Why I Did It
Jared Spurbeck Jared Spurbeck 2 hrs 6 mins ago
Most people probably think that we're the smartphone companies' customers. They're wrong. The companies that make smartphones sell to the wireless carriers, first. That's because -- aside from Apple -- their phones are seen as basically interchangeable with each other. So in order to have any hope of selling to us, they have to first please the carriers like Verizon and AT&T.
What does that mean? Carrier logos all over the phones, uninstallable "trashware" apps, and disabling certain features that the carriers don't like. That's why Verizon can't kill the Droid -- they need to have a "name brand" smartphone that they control, even if they sell iPhones too.
Fortunately, there's a way around that for some Android phones. It's called "rooting" your phone.
The root of the matter
Think of how Mac OS X asks you for your password for certain actions, or Windows gives you the "confirm or deny" pop-up. These are ways of making sure that this risky thing you're about to do is okay with the person who owns the computer. Android shows you the permissions requested by apps that you want to install, but there are certain apps that require "root" (administrative) privileges, like apps that could damage the system if you're not careful. Rooting a phone means granting yourself those privileges.
I wasn't planning on messing my phone up. I just didn't want AT&T trashware apps all over it. Plus I had no idea when, or if, they'd let HTC upgrade my Aria to the latest version of Android (with animated wallpapers!). So I took matters into my own hands, and rooted my phone so I could install "Froyo" myself.
Don't try this at home?
Rooting your phone isn't illegal. It can potentially void your warranty, though, and if something goes wrong you might end up "bricking" your phone. It's not something you should do unless you're comfortable with the technology involved, and you understand the risks and potential rewards.
I'm not going to link to the walkthroughs I used, partly because of that and partly because they're only for the kind of phone that I use. I will say that rooting it and installing a "custom ROM" of the Froyo version of Android was easier than I expected ... up until I actually got it working.
Confirm or deny?
My first thought, once it loaded, was "Cool animated wallpaper!" But I quickly realized something: HTC had designed my phone's HTC Sense interface with normal people in mind, who just want to download some apps and then go on the 'net. But the Cyanogenmod version of Froyo put the "custom" in "custom ROM." It didn't work the way I was used to, and trying to get things back to normal required going through pages and pages of options, many more than usual.
Some things I couldn't get back to normal at all, because unlike Google's open-source Android programming code they were proprietary to HTC phones. That meant Cyanogen couldn't legally include them, which left me without certain features that I was used to.
I downloaded a program from HTC's website the next day that would return my phone to normal. A few days later, they finally released their (and AT&T's) official version of Froyo. It has its quirks, but they're worth it ... they have to be, because it also locked me out from rooting my phone ever again.
Jared Spurbeck is an open-source software enthusiast, who uses an Android phone and an Ubuntu laptop PC. He has been writing about technology and electronics since 2008. |
